I'm doing something wrong with my Jubilee watermelons. Some of them, in fact, most of the ones in a 30 ft row are not nice. even shaped melons, but more pear shaped. What am I doing wrong? Inconsistent watering? Incomplete pollination? There are bees in the garden and we do everything we can to encourage and protect the honeybees but they have a hard go at it here in this climate. If you need a photo I can take one of the funny shaped melons. I even had two that looked more like birdhouse gourds! They tasted good though. The flavor is very sweet with a crispy texture.
The melons are 4 to a group, 4 ft between groups and the vines have covered an area 4 or 5 ft wide and 35 ft long.
Farmerdill, watermelon question please
Jubilee and most long type melons will grow that shape when stressed. Yours are awfully crowded. I plant them 10 ft apart. It is a big melon. They also do not handle heavy soils as well as round melons. When I was a kid, we only grew round melons like Dixie Queen and Stone mountain on our hillside farm. Folks who had access to river lowgrounds grew tom Watson, Kleckly's Sweet, and Georgia Rattlesnake. On our hillside they bottlenecked badly. Here on this sandbar, watermelons of all kinds are a breeze.
It almost sounds like a pollination problem to me. Since I have been hand pollinating my squash and zucchini I have had much better looking fruit.
Lack of pollination can give similar results, but the melons are not usually very edible. They will be misshapen and usually rot on the ends.
calalily,
I agree that those watermelons are far too crowded. I plant them 5 feet apart and 1 to a hill usually.....a few times 2 in a hill and that is ok when there is plenty of side room.
Thanks everyone for their answers.I have had a few with blossom end rot. but blamed it on overwatering..
The plants are in a type of raised bed system, rows are 30' long and 5' wide. I do intensive gardening, things get planted much closer in the raised bed system than if each had individual rows. The soil is loose, rich and I can stick my hand about 12" deep. Everything is mulched. Plants are watered deeply every 5-7 days as needed. I let the top 2" get barely moist, then soak the ground. We have only had two inches of rain since January.
The round type melons are much better shaped. Cantaloupes are right next to them and are great.
I picked two Jubilee's last night, bottleneck, all indicators said they were ripe, but when cut they were pink inside and not good.
Here is a photo of the garden taken in April. Cantaloupes are on the right, watermelons on the left. I meant to take some photos last night but forgot.
Calalilly - what lovely, neat rows!
Very nice looking soil and well cared for.
I too raise watermelons on deep loose soil on raised rows about 6 or7 feet wide. Cantaloupes do ok on closer planting and less perfect soil.
I've been thinking about the melons and the spacing. For the last two years, the melons weren't crowded, lots of space between plants, and still the same weird shape. Could have been the soil, I've really improved the soil by adding copious amounts of organic matter.
I have 5 or 6 more watermelon rows, some are large type, some are small type melons. I'll keep an eye on those and let you know how they do.
calalily,
The link below says that bottle neck is caused by incomplete pollination.....or somewhat by watering, but different varieties vary in suseptibility. I tried JubileeII once and it was the only disappointment in a good melon year....so some varieties are easier to raise than others.
I don;t know about pollination in your area, but in mine the honey bees seem slow to find the watermelons and I have hand pollinated the early ones and don't want later set ons after 2 melons on the larger varieties as that saps vitality from the fruits already set on.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/southtex/info/Diseases/wd28.html
I hadn't thought about to many fruit on one vine, it is possible that the plant can't support that many fruits. On Giant Pumpkins you always cull down to one fruit in order the grow the biggest possible fruit.
I hadn't thought about too many fruits either, but they've got plenty of fruit. I will pick off the deformed ones, give the new ones time to grow and hopefully have some nice fruit later (our growing season is year round).
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